Yesterday I played some Labyrinth Lord with my best friend and his three kids aged five to ten.
1. The youngest one was drawing and rolling dice. Writing a to-hit table on the character sheet with target numbers for AC 0 to 9 worked really well.
2. Both boy and father cheered like madmen when they hit and killed some goblins.
3. The oldest girl complained about wanting some “action” when they stumbled into the third empty room.
4. We are playing Tomb of the Iron God with the characters starting 5001 XP, ie. mostly third level except for elves and thieves. The kids don’t seem to mind loosing a lot of characters.
5. I’m using Trollsmyth’s Death and Dismemberment table. I’m not sure the kids really need it, though. Twice now characters have ended up with broken bones and had to effectively retire.
6. I forgot about Shields Shall Be Splintered, but I’ll remember that for next time.
7. I had the mummified goblin head intone “Turn back ye grave robbers. If you continue, ye shall all die!” whenever the characters addressed it. The kids loved it and asked half a dozen questions before moving on. They also had lots of ideas involving kicking the head, showing it the middle finger, swearing, and doing all sorts of silly stuff.
8. When they retreated after having killed nearly all the goblins in the first outpost they mounted the goblin leader’s head on a post outside the temple, writing “V.A.M.K. was here” using their initials. When they returned, the head was gone and the goblins had written on the floor “V.A.M.K. must dry!” The kids thought the typo hilarious and nearly fell off the bench.
9. The boy had a character with strength 12 (which was the highest in the party) and all other scores below average (with a -1 penalty). Only when his dad’s character had to be replaced did it occur to him that he might also want a new character.
10. New characters were made and then we spent some time drinking hot chocolate. The boys looked at Star Wars deck plans and the girls looked at Elfquest comics. All in all we got about two hours of gaming. It was good. 😄
11. The kids don’t understand the concept of XP and level advancement, so I think we’ll keep it without any XP for a while. All characters start at level three except for thieves starting at level four and elves starting at level two.
12. My basic idea is that the *Temple of the Iron God* holds a holy sword of Mitras that needs to be returned to the knights of *Curnitha* in the *Wildlands*, the first setting of Rob Conley’s Points of Light. We’ll see how they take to wilderness adventures.
I think we’ll try and get those two hours of gaming once a month. I’ve added the campaign to the long list of campaigns I’m involved in.
#RPG #Old School #Labyrinth Lord #Kids
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Sounds like a great time!
– Matthew James Stanham 2010-01-13 16:31 UTC
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It was! I really don’t know when I last enjoyed role playing game that much. Love my kids and their silly ideas. And all of a sudden, I became a child, too. ;)
– zeno 2010-01-22 19:50 UTC